Escape Music Festival – Day 1 (Preview)

Okay. Okay. So y’all know I can’t dance worth a damn unless I’m shitcanned and someone cuts loose with the twerk BOOM! of the Queen Diva praise but I’d like to think that I can appreciate a boogie to the rhythm and beat or epileptic soundscape swing and I certainly do enjoy the opportunity to hop a bridge to intern myself for twelve hours with the sexed and thralling youth of America, today and so in nine days (give or take) I’ll be making my way to the Governors Beach Club (NEW LOCATION!) to engage headlong and full-on into the windy wilds of the inaugural Escape Music Festival. Below you’ll find some considerations of the acts at play, many of which I don’t know worth a hot damn but’ll do my blurry best to appreciate. Rockit.

Ed. Note: Charles still doesn’t know how to write about DJs.

Ed. Note Update: The Escape Music Festival recently announced set times which do no, necessarily, correlate to the sort order of this preview. You’ll find that info in a poster at the bottom of the page. Please pardon this confusion.

The Most Definitely

The Most Definitely is Tim Mullowney (mostly) and Tim Mullowney (mostly) likes to get with the basement party mixtape/rehash up with people party program. He (they?) are part-time curators of this engagement and the crest on which we’ll ride this wave to excess, baby.

Follow Me

I have no fucking idea and the internet isn’t really cooperating this evening so now I’m trying to make my way through the murky smirk of British humor without losing my naive yankee charm so…um…yay?

JDH and Dave P

(secretly, i’ve always wanted to find myself in the flash and sweaty post-porn stash that is the meat of Last Night’s Party but i’m a fucking square, man and not the kind that ends up in orgies for all the internets to whiff and wonder just how guiltless screwing can be given the right drugs and djs)

BASECAMP

Downtempo hella hep chill trio from Nashville making the sentimental grooving sex, if not love jams with a live bandish aesthetic that warms the skin and steals the kiss before the train to Clarksville kicks the sun out the stars.

Wolf & Lamb are two Brooklyn kids gone global soul-kick panache. Party pranksters and errant hoteliers (or not?), the duo does for dance music what Corey Rusk did for pig fuck but way, way, WAY less death trip. Also Zev (Wolf) is very much not Z’EV. That’s kind of a bummer.

Plastic Plates & Sam Sparro (DJ Set)

Sam Sparro is an Aussie darling Bryan Ferry synthpop bastard dreamboat and Plastic Plates is a New York pulse and rumbler. There’s a jazz grandpa connection between the two and the collaborations they’ve produced are the stuff of PWAC pot turkey payoffs. Don’t know what it means that they’re strictly DJing. No singing? It’d be a sin.

Neon Indian (DJ Set)

My darling madman Marcos was the one who introduced me to Neon Indian one late night via garbled text and though I can’t quite remember the impetus (drugs or girl/boy hemorrhage I’m guessing) but this kid’s playing in the psychic vape of Tronscape like a mofo.

STRFKR (DJ Set)

Starfucker (let’s be real here) are way more awesome than we ever give them credit for because we feel shame every time we try to shake our man tits to the Polyvinyl party pageantry. Sometimes uncool is just uncouth.

Bakermat

It takes some serious sac to sample the good Reverend, but this Dutch cat did and the results are rich with earnest, young decency. One love, brother. All in.

Ra Ra Riot

In the past, I’ve judged this band harshly on account of their melodramatic string movements and wicked overenthusiastic barefoot bassist but that’s probably because whenever I’ve seen them I’ve been hard-rocking the No Fun syndrome. Nuts to that. Let’s dance.

Moon Boots

Dance Dance Glitter Pants from some manner of Boombox bestial spaceman or just a cat in epic sunglasses.

The Crystal Method

There was a time back when these dudes were THE MASSIVE! and even the most determined of guitar-hard purists had to recognize that their beat was jack-blasted into an epileptic rhythm odyssey. Is that dude playing a turntable guitar? Legion of Boom, indeed.

Yeasayer

I’d always written off Yeasayer as some privilege hippie shtick but all reports credited them as being the future of the art-wrought spirit nutbag screaming the hinges off Heaven’s Gate. I can get with that, madness.

Placebo

Olivier always tried to get me to get with Placebo citing all manner of “aggro passages” from their storied career as melodramatic quaffed swooners. I never took but I bet they’ll put on one bombastic gig and if there’s one thing my lust loves it’s grandeur.

Moby (DJ Set)

Moby’s more recent musical musings have gone the way of the dark and dreary (if not totally devastating and/or heartwarming) and I gladly admit that I appreciate the turn of the electronic maven towards the brink but deep down in the swill of a Saturday night, I imagine the Little Idiot will bring the big time beat speed and prosperity you need to face life in this clown parade.